ECOT scandal could feed anti-GOP backlash at the polls: Brent Larkin

Updated May 17, 2018 at 5:55 AM;Posted May 17, 2018 at 5:52 AM

Ohio Auditor Dave Yost said in releasing a new ECOT audit last week that ActivTrak software, which monitors a user's Internet and application activity, helped his office find that ECOT did not accurately report student participation for the purpose of state funding.
(Jackie Borchardt, cleveland.com)

CLEVELAND -- President Donald Trump's low approval ratings should worry Ohio Republicans. The growing possibility of scandal infecting their campaigns should terrify them. Nothing guarantees a top-of-the-ticket catastrophe in statewide races more than a voter-held perception of significant Statehouse wrongdoing.

Two of the last three Democratic governors - the late John Gilligan in 1970 and Ted Strickland in 2006 - won their jobs in part because Republicans abused the public trust.

And nothing says "abuse of trust" louder and clearer than selling out kids and pouring tax dollars down a rat hole.

That is exactly what happened with the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT), which was Ohio's largest charter school and, in terms of dropout and failure-to-graduate numbers, one of the worst in the country, according to The New York Times.

Founded in 2000, ECOT operated with shamefully inadequate state oversight.

In return, ECOT founder William Lager and his toadies poured more than $2 million into political campaign bank accounts, with the overwhelming majority of it steered to Republicans.

It was money well-spent. Through outright scheming, benign neglect, or unconscionable silence, Republicans running state government only pretended to demand adequate accountability from ECOT.

Now ECOT's feast at the public trough is over. Long-overdue intervention by Gov. John Kasich's state Department of Education resulted in the underperforming school closing its doors.

And the FBI is now investigating some of ECOT's donations, according to a May 10 report by The Columbus Dispatch.

Republicans in Columbus appear to be keeping the FBI busy. Just a few weeks earlier, House Speaker Cliff Rosenberger resigned his position, reportedly under FBI investigation over his relationship with payday lenders.

And now, two years and several court victories later, Kasich's education department is attempting to claw back more than $80 million in tax money it claims was wrongly paid to ECOT and associated firms.

State officials accuse Lager's companies of being paid for submitting wildly inaccurate attendance figures. The state alleges it's all been part of an ECOT effort "to prioritize their monetary gain over the best interests of 12,000 students," as an Ohio Department of Education spokeswoman put it in January.

Two courts have sided with the state, leaving little doubt their rulings weren't close calls.

A final decision by the Ohio Supreme Court is due soon. No rational person expects ECOT to prevail.

And State Auditor Dave Yost, who gave awards to ECOT and spoke at three of its graduation ceremonies, according to The Columbus Dispatch, has accused ECOT of intentionally padding attendance figures to bilk the state of tax dollars.

Yost, the Republican nominee for Ohio attorney general, said the audit proves ECOT officials knew they were submitting false information.

The auditor has referred his findings to the U.S. Attorney's Office and the Franklin County prosecutor, suggesting criminal fraud prosecution would be appropriate.

And Yost also offered the damning admission ECOT probably got away with its attendance scam for years.

Yost's welcome moves won't result in his Democrat opponent, Steve Dettelbach, ignoring, in their general election campaign for Ohio attorney general, all those earlier plaudits the auditor gave ECOT. All Republicans have reason to worry about an ECOT backlash.

But ECOT's most repulsive protectors resided in the Republican-run Ohio legislature. Former Speakers Bill Batchelder and Cliff Rosenberger were noted shills.

And consider the case against State Rep. Keith Faber, the Republican nominee for state auditor, the job now held by Yost. (Faber recently said he'd give to charity the $36,000 in ECOT-related contributions he'd received.)

In early 2016, State Sen. Joe Schiavoni, a Youngstown-area Democrat, introduced a bill to create stronger school-attendance-reporting requirements. Online charters are reimbursed with tax dollars based on the number of students who spend time in electronic classrooms.

State Sen. Peggy Lehner, a Republican from Dayton and chairman of the Senate Education Committee, said she'd gladly hold hearings on the Schiavoni proposal.

But many Republican legislators don't like Lehner because she has qualities so many of them lack: She's honest. She's fair. She actually cares about kids.

So, instead of sending Schiavoni's bill aimed at protecting Ohio's taxpayers to the Education Committee, where it belonged, Faber assigned it instead to the Finance Committee. Where he knew it would die.

And if there's a shred of justice in this state, that's exactly what will happen to Faber's candidacy for state auditor.

The stench of public corruption in Columbus has grown pungent. If voters figure that out, the people in power will be made to pay for it.

Brent Larkin was The Plain Dealer's editorial director from 1991 until his retirement in 2009.

To reach Brent Larkin: blarkin@cleveland.com

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